I have a P4 3.4 GHz processor, 4 GB of memory and a Radeon HD 4670. My MB is an Intel D945PVS.

My frame rates, with video settings in WoW set pretty low, rarely gets over 16 fps but is usually between 6 and 12. The only thing that I can think of to do is either upgrade the graphics card or the processor, or both. My board, it appears from the Intel site, can take up to a Quad Core Pentium. The Vista "Windows Experience Index" is 4.4 if that is very meaningful.

Your processor is your limiting factor there. The Pentium IV processor is a decent processor, but it just can't come near a Core 2 Duo, or even a Pentium D in terms of speed. You aren't going to be able to go up to a higher end core 2 on that board, but you could get into one of the Pentium D's. There is a huge jump in performance between Pentium IV and Pentium D (uch of that due to the multiple cores) There is an even bigger jump in performance between Pentium D and core 2. and a huge jump in performance if you go with the current state of the art, Core i7. You are basically 4 processor generations behind now, so you might wnat to consider an upgrade

It certanly wouldn't hurt, but upgrading it without a processor upgrade wouldn't really give you much. I tend to prefer the Nvidia cards myself, but the HD 4670 is basically a midrange graphics card. It's not a high end gaming card. You really want something like a HD 4870 X2. Or even better a nvidia Geforce 290 GTX

Upgrading your processor significantly will pobably require a motherboard and ram upgrade as well. Also, if you are running anyhting under a 550 watt power supply you will need something bigger at some point.

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

If you are not afraid of backing up and doing a reinstall Windows XP at this time in my opinion is much less of a resource hog then Vista. Will just installing Windows XP make you cap out your FPS, certainly not however it will help.

If you can setup the system and have the money the Nvidia 290 or 295 series is amazing.

Apparently you fail to grasp how little CPU power is required to run wow. I suppose if one had absolutely no inkling of the hardware requirements of the game and was prone to making wild, wildly incorrect guesses based on what little technical information he'd gleaned reading the comments on IGN, one might come to the conclusion that the bottleneck was the CPU here.

By sheer utter coincidence I have a 5 year old box with a P4 3.4, it was my fathers, he won it in a raffle and used it for years. It's a Sony VAIO PCV-RZ56G. Using a ******* AGP 7600GT. At High, 1280x1024, 55-80 fps.

There is *no way*, *in *****, either WOW or the video card in question is bottle necked by a P4 3.5. None. Zero. Zilch.

Stop giving people bad advice. If you're guessing, which you clearly are here, at least say so.

____________________________

Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

On the motherboard specified, with a mid range current generation ATI graphics card and adequate ram, the bottleneck in potential speed of the machine on an intel 945 chipset board IS the 5 year old processor. You may indeed be hitting 50 fps (though i'd be suprised if it were averaging over 24 in combat) with all the particle and other graphics effects turned off on that machine, and I'd take a 7600 over most ATI cards any day, but the fact remains that the video card in that box is probably not being used to anywhere near its full potential because of the single core with hyperthreading nature of that processor. It's not Wow, it's all the other **** on the machine running in the background that will tend to bog things down in a single core environment. Especially with the Vista Aero interface enabled and the DirectX 10 processes running in the background.

If only someone had suggested he should instead install XP rather than spend hundreds of dollars upgrading his hardware to achieve the same result.

Oh wait.

____________________________

Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

Yes Don't waste money downgrading to XP. I am getting excellent performance from the beta test of win 7. Should be great when it is released and optimized. My old 32 bit computer at 2 Ghz gave me 30fps with wow.

Downgrade to Windows XP. Never use a Windows release in the first year it is out unless you wanna figure out all the bugs and be the guinea pig for hackers. Nothing will be compatible for Windows 7 the first year it is out anyway.

Smash is right the bottleneck is not your CPU, it rarely is even though people who don't understand much about PCs always point to this (or the video card.)

Most often overlooked is the bus speed on your motherboard which controls how fast devices such as your memory, CPU, and video card can communicate with each other. On most PCs this is your limiting factor. Your motherboard CPU combo look fine, but do you know what type (speed, not brand) of memory you are using?

Your problem most likely is software related. Downgrade to XP and/or kill unnecessary background programs that are hogging up system resources. Haven't used Vista much myself, but you should be able to gear your PC for performance somewhere in the system properties. Also make sure you don't have any worms, viruses, etc...

Yeah, because spending $80-130 to downgrade to an obsolete operating system when windows 7 is right around the corner is a really good use of resources.

Yeah, the operating system with the largest install base by a factor of 4 is obsolete. Wait, though, Windows 7 is just around the corner so Vista is also **************** I bet Windows 8 will follow in '11, so really, Windows 7 is already obsolete. More and more games are being released console only...PC gaming is probably obsolete...

I think we agree that the best thing he could do is sell one kidney to Dell in exchange for a new machine every 8 weeks with up to date specs. THEN he'll be able to play WOW at a decent frame rate!

Vista's a mess. Still. DX10 is completely worthless. Still. Paying $90 for XP is indeed an excellent use of resources when you consider it will be the primary gaming OS for at least the next 2 years. When you consider the depreciation in real dollar terms of the hardware over the same amount of time, buying XP is, by a huge margin, the better value proposition. When the time comes that there's *actual value* in upgrading to a newer OS, the same hardware will be virtually free.

____________________________

Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

Vista "was" worthless. They have fixed nearly every problem it was having. Sure, it's slightly slower than XP for gaming if you leave Aero on, but it is a **** of alot more stable, has better security. 64 bit Vista especially is a much better gaming platform than any variant of XP across the board simply due to the amount of Ram you can cram in it and the application compatability that XP 64 lacks. Of course 64 bit becomes crucial for the current generation of Core i7 processors, motherboards for which all contain 6 DDR3 ram slots. Especially when he already has the OS. that money would be better spent on a processor which would fit that motherboard with no other upgrades.

If your game supports directX 10, then it looks shiny. Worth, or worthlessness is really subjective when talkign about visual effects. I suppose one could argue that 3D acceleration period is worthless because it is slower than pixle sprite rendering. That would just be silly though. Most games released in the last 2 years support DirectX 10 now.

spending money to downgrade to XP is a complete waste. Spending the money on hardware to make use of the operating system that will supplant XP as the primary gaming OS in September is not a waste. Especially when a significant processor upgrade can be had for $120 these days.

Vista "was" worthless. They have fixed nearly every problem it was having. Sure, it's slightly slower than XP for gaming if you leave Aero on, but it is a **** of alot more stable, has better security.

No. Not close at all, not even plausibly arguable. Vista is not more stable, it is not more secure. If by "has better security" you mean "makes me feel more secure because I have to click through 900 dialogues to do anything", sure.

Microsoft just announced they're extending downgrade rights to the "obsolete" XP in Windows 7. No such option for Vista. I wonder why. Vista is Windows ME 2.0.

____________________________

Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.